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Boiled Apple Dumplings

A boiled dumpling made of dough filled with apples and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Boiled Apple Dumplings

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the dough

  1. In a bowl, mix sour milk, baking soda, salt, and butter or lard.

  2. Add flour until the dough is a little stiffer than biscuit dough.

Assemble the dumplings

  1. Peel and core the apples.

  2. Roll out the dough and place an apple on it.

  3. Fill the cavity of each apple with sugar and encase it in dough, pressing the edges tightly.

  4. Optionally, tie a cloth around each dumpling.

Cook

  1. Boil in a kettle of slightly salted water for 30 minutes, ensuring the water covers the dumplings.

  2. For baking, place in a shallow pan, pour in hot water until just covering the dumplings, and bake at 400°F (200°C) until done.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Milk + appletop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,104 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sour milk
Its acidity reacts with baking soda to produce gas, helping the dough rise and turn tender.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid in sour milk to release carbon dioxide, lightening the dough.
Butter or lard
Adds fat that tenderizes the dough and gives it a richer, flakier texture.
Flour
Provides the structure that holds the dough together around the apple.
Sugar
Sweetens the apple filling and helps it caramelize slightly as it cooks.

The step that matters

Encasing the apples in dough. If the edges are not pressed tightly, the seal can open during cooking, letting sugar and juices escape and leaving the dumpling dry or misshapen.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, flour, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, sugar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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